“Holes,” replied the chief of the local constabulary, sententiously; “there’s holes in that there river where you might hide half a dozen drownded men, and never hope to find ’em, no more than if they was at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.  Lord bless your heart, sir, you Londoners don’t know what a river is, in a manner of speaking,” added the man, who was most likely unacquainted with the existence of the Thames, compared with which noble stream this sluggish Hampshire river was the veriest ditch.  “I’ve known a many poor creatures drownded in that river, and never one of ’em to come to light—­not that the river was dragged for them.  Their friends weren’t of the dragging class, they weren’t.”

The London police were more hopeful and more delusive.  They were always hearing of some young lady newly arrived at some neighbouring town or village who seemed to answer exactly to the description of Mrs. Holbrook.  And, behold, when Gilbert Fenton hurried off post-haste to the village or town, and presented himself before the lady in question, he found for the most part that she was ten years older than Marian, and as utterly unlike her as it was possible for one Englishwoman to be unlike another.

He possessed a portrait of the missing girl—­a carefully finished photograph, which had been given to him in the brief happy time when she was his promised wife; and he caused this image to be multiplied and distributed wherever the search for Marian was being made.  He neglected no possible means by which he might hope to obtain tidings; advertising continually, in town and country, and varying his advertisements in such a manner as to insure attention either from the object of his inquiries, or any one acquainted with her.

But all his trouble was in vain.  No reply, or, what was worse, worthless and delusive replies, came to his advertisements.  The London police, who had pretended to be so hopeful at first, began to despair in a visible manner, having put all their machinery into play, and failed to obtain even the most insignificant result.  They were fain to confess at last that they could only come to pretty much the same conclusion as that arrived at by their inferiors, the rustic officials; and agreed that in all probability the river hid the secret of Marian Holbrook’s fate.  She had been the victim of either crime or accident.  Who should say which?  The former seemed the more likely, as she had vanished in broad daylight, when, it was scarcely possible that her footsteps could go astray; while in that lonely neighbourhood a crime was never impossible.

“She had a watch and chain, I suppose?” the officer inquired.  “Ladies will wear ’em.”

Gilbert ascertained from Ellen Carley that Marian had always worn her watch and chain, had worn them when she left the Grange for the last time.  She had a few other trinkets too, which she wore habitually, quaint old-fashioned things, of some value.